First Encounters
by Noelie
Summary: QuiGon and Noela are good friends, but can young ObiWan understand attachments are something we all deal with? Story by DarthIshtar
1. Chapter 1

First EncountersPart1

I'm not sure I understand, Master."

Qui-Gon had never expected the experience of training a Padawan to be particularly easy. After all, he had been anything but a model Padawan. Headstrong and inquisitive, he had often tried the patience of Master and teachers alike.

Obi-Wan, on the other hand, was a meticulously obedient thirteen-year-old who questioned anything that violated the Jedi Code.

That was never more apparent than today, when Qui-Gon first mentioned that the Noela he had spoken of frequently was something a little more complicated than a diplomatic contact.

"You are familiar with the yearly event of escorting a member of the opposite sex," Qui-Gon said patiently. "Noela Ovorp of the Alderaanian Senatorial delegation has a long-standing relation with the Jedi in that regard."

Obi-Wan scowled as if facing a particularly obstinate foe. "She has a long-standing relation with _you_," he corrected. "I thought that was counter to the purpose of that activity." 

"The purpose of the activity is to maintain diplomatic ties and improve the image of the Jedi," Qui-Gon recited. "Noela would..."

"You don't even call her Senator, Master," Obi-Wan protested. "That's improper."

"I call her Senator in the appropriate situations, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon insisted. "In more informal settings, however, I certainly am at liberty to treat her as the friend that she is." 

This clearly was something that flew in the face of whatever lecture the crechemasters had given his Padawan when facing this situation last year and, not surprisingly, it was more than Obi-Wan could tolerate.

"She's not a friend," Obi-Wan stated. "She's an...an..."

His face screwed up rather dramatically into an expression of horror that would have been comical on anyone else.

"An _attachment_," Obi-Wan accused at last.

Qui-Gon blinked in what he could only honestly describe as confused indifference as his Padawan seethed silently in anticipation of his response. Feeling some sort of response was warranted, he clasped his hands serenely in front of him and regarded Obi-Wan with an open stare.

"You take that back," he offered politely.

"Master," Obi-Wan burst out, "she's an _attachment_!"

"You're an attachment if it comes to that," Qui-Gon reminded. "I've grown rather attached to you despite your inability to understand basic principles of friendship."

"I'm an attachment because of the will of the Force," Obi-Wan countered. "Why hasn't Yoda stopped this?"

"He's tried!" 

That was certainly not what Obi-Wan had expected. He rocked back on his heels, looking as if he'd been slapped in the face. It was a rather unnecessary reaction to the fact that the Council recognized what Obi-Wan could not.

"He's tried?" Obi-Wan stammered. "You overrode…"

"I did nothing of the sort," Qui-Gon assured him. "The Council deemed that I should be assigned to another party several times and I have abided by their wishes on every occasion. Moreover, I have never comported myself in an unseemly manner or had any inclination to do so."

Allowing himself a small smirk, he looked Obi-Wan straight in the eye and the younger man at least had the decency to flinch. "I've gained Master Yoda's trust in this matter," he explained at last. "I would hope that it would be enough for you."

Obi-Wan sighed heavily at last and with obvious reluctance, but nodded. "It just doesn't seem right," Obi-Wan admitted.

"I know," Qui-Gon soothed, "but perhaps this 'attachment' as you put it is just as much the will of the Force as your apprenticeship is." As always, the day of assignments came with great anticipation, but Obi-Wan managed to pass out well before the datacards were delivered. Qui-Gon managed to haul him to bed and then retreated to the repulsorchair closest to the door with a hot mug of tisane.

Certainly, he was not alone. Even the youngest of the chosen had the tendency to wait with great anticipation for the assignments, as other children might want to stay up until midnight for the advent of the new year. There was no suspense this year, however, since one thing had already gone right at the very least. 

Finally, around 0215, the packet slid beneath the door and Qui-Gon summoned it to his hand. His own datacard went into the datapadd for later perusal, but he crossed to Obi-Wan's door and slipped it through the crack at the bottom, already knowing what it said.

_Padawan Kenobi,_

We thank you for your willingness to cooperate in the yearly public relations effort to be held on the fourteenth day of the second month. We know it will be an excellent learning experience as it has been for the Jedi in the last three hundred years.

This year, it is the wish of the Alderaanian consulate that you liaise with Senator Noela Ovorp, Senior Senator of Alderaan. She awaits your contact to make the necessary arrangements.

We anticipate that you will bring honor to the Jedi in this time-honored tradition and that your efforts will only further our cause of promoting good relations between our Order and the peoples whom we serve.

Again, we thank you for your efforts.

Sincerely,  
The Jedi Council


	2. Chapter 2

Firstencounterspart2

It was strange enough to see Obi-Wan looking unnerved, but having him in exercise clothes as well as a state of abject misery was truly something to behold. The word 'fidgeting' didn't even begin to describe it.

Even worse, Noela wasn't due to arrive for another hour.

"What's your sentence again?" Obi-Wan asked impatiently.

Qui-Gon cast a disapproving look on his Padawan, but Obi-Wan was obviously too preoccupied to notice.

"I am _privileged_," he corrected, "not sentenced and I am privileged to be escorting the concertmistress of the Coronet Philharmonic."

Obi-Wan made a noise that suggested he'd swallowed his own tongue, drawing another reproachful glare from his Master.

"What now?" Qui-Gon inquired.

"Typical," Obi-Wan said grouchily. "You'll always find yourself with some high-born or overachieving beauty while I'm consigned to a fate of cast-offs."

He was surprised to find himself so flustered so immediately. "Noela is _not_ a cast-off!" he protested.

"Fine," Obi-Wan grunted unhappily, "but last year, I was assigned to the Gand delegation's resident nymphomaniac."

"Obi-Wan!"

"What?" he protested. "It's true!"

"Be that as it may," Qui-Gon spluttered, "you're too young to pass that kind of judgment on anyone, much less a diplomat."

"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan said emotionlessly.

"And moreover, you're too young to know that word!"

"Well, you're not setting the best example, either!" Obi-Wan shot back. 

"It's not that kind of relationship!"

The door chimed, interrupting the argument and Qui-Gon's brow furrowed immediately as he sensed Noela outside.

"What is she doing..."

It was too late to wonder, however, since Obi-Wan palmed the door open to welcome their guest...

And froze dead in his tracks.

In hindsight, Qui-Gon reflected, it was probably entirely his fault. He had warned Noela to put Obi-Wan at ease, not dressing as if she were off to a Senatorial recpetion. Obi-Wan, for his part, had wisely come up with an activity--tandem swoop-biking around the Senate and Temple districts--that would allow both of them to be comfortable. They'd even decided on a restaurant that wouldn't require him to remember which fork to use first.

She was trying a little too hard to put him at ease, though. That could be the only explanation for the skin-tight black exercise pants and abbreviated green sleeveless tunic that she had donned for the occasion. Her hair was coiled into a bun high on her head, exposing every inch of skin that she had left bare from hips to head.

He suspected that Obi-Wan would have gone thoroughly cross-eyed if the Force hadn't been with him. As it was, Noela had to take the initiative and shake his hand.

Obi-Wan said nothing by way of greeting to her, only turned a glare on his Master.

"_That_," he hissed, "is not 'that kind of relationship?"

Noela, with too many years of diplomacy behind her, pretended not to notice his comment. "Noela Ovorp," she introduced herself. "You must be the Obi-Wan that I've heard about."

"Hrggh," he responded.

Qui-Gon was quickly reconsidering his plans for the evening when Noela stepped aside to reveal that she had not come alone.

"I figured," Noela said smoothly, "that if the both of us had to come, we might as well do it together." 

He hadn't seen Meredith Ovorp much since the first time he'd met her, but it had obviously been too long. She'd gone from a gawky pre-teen to a young woman whose elegance of stature that rivaled her older sister's.

That was, until one or both of them ran into the door.

"Uncle Qui," Mere greeted with a broad grin.

"I'm not sure you're still young enough to call me that," he teased.

"I'm always that young," she rejoined. "I understand you get to be my grumpy chaperone for the night?"

"I didn't say grumpy!" Noela interjected. "Venerable, maybe..."

"You're just as _venerable_ as I am," he reminded.

Obi-Wan was palpably starting to squirm, the situation not helped by the fact that he was trying to avoid staring at something by looking at something anatomically lower, to whit, his date's bare midriff. The look that he typically wore only when kicked hard in the head was returning.

"Padawan," Qui-Gon said with a slight edge in his tone, "would you help me get Noela and Mere something to drink?"


	3. Chapter 3

Firstencounterspart3

"We'll be back in a few minutes," Qui-Gon promised. "Just make yourselves comfortable."

He could hear the murmur of voices that suggested that Noela was, as usual, ignoring the suggestion. Instead, she was giving Mere an unnecessary 'tour' of the living room to explain all the things that she'd mentioned in passing over the years. Given the amount of information that Mere seemed to know about him, their conversations had not entirely avoided the subject of the Jedi Temple.

Obi-Wan, on the other hand, was following with a kind of resigned dutifulness as any teenaged boy would when asked to do chores. As the father figure, Qui-Gon had to keep himself from dragging Obi-Wan by the ear into the kitchen with a good degree of difficulty. After all, only so much could be blamed on hormones.

The rest could only be blamed on Obi-Wan getting a taste of his own medicine.

"She's an _attachment,_" he began in a frank and accurate impression of Obi-Wan's persistent whine.

"Master, I am not..."

"Padawan," Qui-Gon said patiently, "is she a Turagi?"

Obi-Wan's brow furrowed at this, since a human woman in no way resembled a thirty-foot sea monster with its oral cavity in the middle.

"No," he said in obvious puzzlement.

"Then the face that you should be looking at will be nowhere below her neck!" Qui-Gon snapped. "If your chin goes anywhere towards the floor in looking at her, I'll have to take some drastic measures. Understood?" 

Obi-Wan looked openly stunned at the thought of anyone taking drastic measures with him within the Jedi Temple, since he was a letter-and-spirit-of-the-law obedient adherent to the Jedi Code at this point.

"Master," he repeated weakly. 

"Understood?" Qui-Gon hissed in a low, dangerous voice that suggested that he would get an appropriate answer, even if it took the entire week to do so.

"Master," Obi-Wan protested, "you can't say you've never thought of her that way!" 

"As a piece of meat?"

"As a...well..." 

Obi-Wan was as red as a julaberry and at a complete loss for words. Perhaps they should have this sort of conversation more often. 

"I have always considered her to be lovely and charming," Qui-Gon explained, voice returning to a more normal tone to spare his Padawan the humiliation of suffering a cardiac arrest in the middle of the kitchen. "I have always considered her to be a worthy and loyal friend. It never even _entered_ my mind to wonder what her navel looked like!"

"Well, sure," Obi-Wan sniffed, "but you've outgrown your hormones. I'm still thirteen. You can't fault me for thinking of her that way." 

It was a good thing that the wooden spoons were across the kitchen because if Qui-Gon had been inclined to abuse the Force, he might have smacked Obi-Wan over the head with one. The boy needed some sense knocked into him in one way or another.

"Oh, yes I can."

If Obi-Wan even began the chemical process of having a lascivious thought, he would be scrubbing 'freshers until his fourth Padawan sat on the Council.

Qui-Gon's flat tone seemed to have more of a cowing effect than any harsh bleating that he might have hastily engaged in earlier in the conversation. 

"You," he said, threat unveiled, "will be a complete gentleman tonight, not only because you represent the Jedi Order, but because you are _my_ Padawan and that is my..." 

He broke off, unsure of how to precisely describe her.

_My best friend._

My only understanding companion.

My j'm. 

My Noela.

"That is Noela," he finished inadequately, "and you will someday appreciate what her friendship has meant to the Order as well as me."

That finally seemed to sink in and Obi-Wan's expression turned to one of wholehearted relief that Qui-Gon was, at last, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"I hope to begin that process tonight," Obi-Wan said meekly.

Qui-Gon wasn't sure if that were what Obi-Wan thought he wanted to hear or something genuine, but he finally cracked a smile.

"It won't be difficult," he admitted, "once you forget that the word 'attachment' was ever translated into Basic." The swoop-bike was, in a word, antiquated.

Obi-Wan had found a place that rented swoops that still required foot-pedals to keep the engine going, thinking that a bit of healthy exercise never hurt anyone. The trick was that every bike on the lot was therefore from the days of Alderaan's last war.

To whit, something that should have been demolished centuries ago, but was kept along for nostalgia.

Obi-Wan had found himself rather mortified at this and was about to suggest they find another venue of entertainment when Noela drifted over to a particularly beat-up one with racing stripes in fuschia and questionable pedals.

"I think we should call her 'Deathwish' for the evening," she teased.

He found himself grinning in spite of himself. "Watch out," he cautioned, coming over to inspect the mount. "No one likes to be told the truth about themself."

"Well," she suggested with feigned concern, "we could call her a noble steed, but we don't want to give her delusions of grandeur." 

"Deathwish it is, then," he agreed. "Should we pay here or do you think they'd pay us to get it out and about?" 

As it was, the price for a night's rental was only 20 credits, which suggested that they charged not by the hour but by the total value of the equipment. Even then, it might have been overcharged.

They both looked rather absurd with the helmets on, since they were designed to keep everything from dust to starlight out of the eyes, but were transparent enough for him to steer.

"Where to first?"

Noela reached under his arm, tapping in coordinates to the mapviewer that he recognized as in the consular district. "You got to show off your home," she explained. "My turn." "I wonder if they're still alive."

Qui-Gon rolled his eyes, but kept his smile broad and genuine. "I doubt Obi-Wan is _that_ bad of a driver," he rejoined.

"I wasn't talking about driving," Mere countered. "He's more likely to keel over from the uncertainty of what is proper etiquette and she might work herself to death letting him like her in a non-romantic sense." 

"She wouldn't have to try," Qui-Gon sighed. "She never does."

"I know," Mere responded quietly. 

She lifted her chin slightly, indicating the stage below where the improbable chamber orchestra made up entirely of Senators with too much time on their hands was tuning up. "Have you heard them before?"

"I can't say that Jedi have much time to go to concerts," Qui-Gon admitted. "The last time I heard one was the Alderaanian Symphony when Noela insisted on getting tickets for my Master and myself and that was before my Knighting." 

"Ah," she sighed, "in the Dark Ages." 

He knew he was nineteen years her senior, but that kind of impudence was practically unforgivable.

Or it would be if the term weren't so funny.

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded, straining to keep the laughter out of his voice.

"She did that one year after the Jedi made you escort someone else," Mere reminded, "as a birthday present. She calls that the Dark Ages because she didn't get to illuminate you in the slightest for six whole years."

That prompted another roll of the eyes, but a discussion of Noela's quirks usually did.

"Glad to know I have my own vocabulary," he said dryly. "Care to translate anything else?"

"No," she said airily, "you probably don't want to know. Besides, the concert's starting."

Qui-Gon hated to admit that she was probably right. The art of pedal-biking, it turned out, was a lot more difficult than it seemed. After three complete failures and a few heart-stopping plummets, they managed to work out a system that kept them airborne.

Mostly.

By the time they got around the Alderaanian Consulate, looped the Senate twice and cut a dash through the Temple district, they were laughing too hard to talk and were starting to tire.

"I think it's a good time for dinner," he called over the honking of horns that seemed to accompany them everywhere that they idled along.

"Can't argue with that," she bellowed back.

Fortunately, it was only a five-minute ride to the great undiscovered treasure of culinary arts that was Dex's Diner.

"I don't think I've ever felt this young," she panted as she stowed her helmet beneath the seat.

"Nor I," he agreed.

"You're only thirteen," she reminded. "You're not allowed to feel old for another ten years."

"I'm a Jedi," he insisted. "We start feeling old around the time that everyone else starts becoming Padawans."

Her mouth curved down slightly. "That explains a lot about Qui-Gon," she observed. "He had such a good nature and learned humor with a bit of difficulty, but he always seemed to be carrying a mind as old as Yoda at times."

It was probably the most accurate thing he'd heard told about his Master, but then again, Obi-Wan had never known Qui-Gon in the days before Xanatos.

"What was he like before he took his first apprentice?"

She blanched, probably without noticing, and he knew in that moment that there had been something lost to her as well when Qui-Gon was critically wounded that way for the first time. It was slightly reassuring, if somewhat frightening.

"He always had that solemn nature, took things seriously, which is why we worked for each other," she observed, "but when Xanatos betrayed him, he forgot that he knew how to keep himself from feeling how heavy his heart was."

"It must have been difficult," Obi-Wan murmured.

"It was," she agreed, "for all of us, but I hope you never have to understand why."

He wanted to ask more questions, but the doors slid open and the stenches and screeches that were Dex's on a busy night nearly knocked them back a few paces. The waitdroid buzzed by, muttering something about college students and it was hard to see an empty table anywhere.

Perhaps this wasn't the best place to take her. 

"If you want, we can..." he began.

"This place has character!" she lauded with a broad grin. "I'll have to bully Qui-Gon into taking me here next year."

Finally, a relief. He had just let out a long breath when four arms crushed him from behind.

"Obi-Wan," Dex crowed, "you've been avoiding me."

"I wouldn't call it that," Obi-Wan choked out, ducking out of the hug. "We've been off-planet."

"You've been on-planet long enough to get a girlfriend," Dex harrumphed. "I could have gotten you one of those."

"Except I'm not fond of the kind with more than five legs," Obi-Wan responded. "Besides, this isn't a girlfriend. This is..."

"Noela Ovorp," Dex finished, extending one of his hands. "I've seen her at the Senate on occasion."

He waved a hand. "We're a bit crowded, so if you don't mind the private dining room, you can take her back there."

"Private?" Noela inquired as they made their way towards the back end of the restaurant.

"Dex was rescued from slavers by Qui-Gon and Master Dooku," Obi-Wan explained, "so he never denies a Jedi a place to eat. The 'private' dining room is what he's set up to accomodate that." 

It was, in fact, a converted broom cupboard, but one that was familiar to most Jedi. Obi-Wan had first been there when the Crechemasters insisted on taking the highest-scoring initiates in mathematics out for lunch. Trying to fit two Masters and six squirming initiates between the ages of eight and ten had been quite an adventure.

"Charming," she said dryly as she settled herself on the packing crate. "Anything you recommend?" 

"Just stay away from anything on the 'authentic' list," he counselled. "Dex has a very strange idea about what that means."

"Duly noted," she said with a nod. "And something still wriggling would probably be unwise as well."

"I don't know," Obi-Wan mused, "sometimes it's the only way you can be sure it was once edible." "They're not back yet," Obi-Wan lamented, swiping his passkey through the door release.

"Most concerts run late," Noela reminded. "We shouldn't have to wait long."

He turned on the lights, then headed for the kitchen. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Anything cold," she suggested. "I never thought it could be this warm this early in the year."

"More likely you didn't think you'd work up that much of a sweat in the middle of winter," he rejoined. "I certainly didn't."

He returned to find her watching him with a curious expression.

"You didn't like me much," she guessed.

"I didn't know you," he retorted. "I just knew Qui-Gon was far too fond of you for his own good."

She managed a smile at that. "Do you still think that?"

He shook his head with a crestfallen expression. "I think I'll be guilty of it in another five minutes."

"Good," she pronounced. "We just don't have to tell Qui-Gon."


End file.
